Independent industry news for marketing, advertising & media execs
Louise Marsland’s (@Louise_Marsland) pick of new product, packaging and design launches.
Marketing SA wines in the US is not a picnic, Top Shop provides a window on new fashions, another ‘BlackBerry’ launch, and we find out which is the most desirable tablet is in South Africa…
y Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee) The watchwords for consumer technology in 2013 will be “thinner” and “bigger”. If that sounds like a contradiction, it’s only because the hi-tech industry itself is wrestling with contradictory demands in two key areas of gadgetry: TV sets and cellphones. In particular, the consumer is demanding ever-thinner and lighter devices, while expecting ever-bigger screens.
That is a given when it comes to TV sets, but there has long been an assumption by market commentators that phones would always get smaller.
Apple, for example, clung tenaciously to its 3.5” screen size through the iPhone 3, 4 and 4S, it only relented a little in expanding the iPhone 5 to a 4” screen. It was trounced in the market, however, by Samsung’s Galaxy S3 with its 4.8” screen. At the same time, the first so-called “phablet” (phone/tablet), the Samsung Note, was a surprise success with its oversized 5.3” screen.
One of the big questions that the recent International CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas was expected to answer was whether this push for higher screen sizes was a firm trend, or whether small remained cool.
Debate swirling around Microsoft’s proposed Surface tablet misses the point about the significance of Windows 8, writes Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee).
It’s almost a mantra in the computer business that you write off Microsoft at your peril. The company’s Windows operating system runs most of the world’s computers, it has tens of billions of dollars in the bank, and its Office software sets the standard for productivity tools in the working world.
Yet, it remains fashionable to predict its demise or declare it is unable to innovate and is about to be supplanted by Google or Apple.
That summed up the response to Microsoft’s announcement last month that it would release its own tablet computer, to be called the Surface. (see http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en/us/about.aspx ). Its most striking feature is a thin, touch-sensitive cover that folds out into a keyboard, with a built-in trackpad. It will run the new Windows 8 operating system, in two configurations: a lower-end version called Windows RT, and the business-oriented Windows Pro.
by Arthur Goldstuck The days of the iPad’s dominance of the tablet market are numbered. Until recently, more than two thirds of tablets sold across the world have been made by Apple. That has afforded the manufacturer the luxury of dictating the direction of the market, from size to functionality to case studies of ideal …
Continue reading “In SA Samsung tablet sales figures are closing in on iPad numbers”
The new iPad has two remarkable features: a dazzling Retina Display, and a complete lack of version number. We explores what this means.
During a round-table interview with a group of South African journalists, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop dropped strong hints about the company’s entry into the tablet market.
Eva Csernyanszky explains how publishers may make the leap into digital publishing
The rush by media owners to embrace tablets borders on the unseemly. And who can blame them given the continued decline of print revenue and resistance by folk to pay for content on the internet. Tablets, we are told, are much closer to print magazines than to the free-for-all interwebs.
BuzzCity is a global mobile advertising network focused on emerging markets. In Africa this Singapore-based company, in which media giant Naspers owns a stake, does substantial business in South Africa (where it also has a sales office), Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana. It also sees significant growth in mobile traffic in African markets north of the Sahara.
ARTHUR GOLDSTUCK considers whether the Apple iPad still sets the benchmark for the Gadget Ten Question Tablet Test.
